


I Feel Glad When You're Glad

by Harpokrates



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Harm to Children, Plo 'dad vibes' Koon, Preseries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24053611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harpokrates/pseuds/Harpokrates
Summary: Plo Koon considers his bright young charge.
Relationships: Plo Koon & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 5
Kudos: 162





	I Feel Glad When You're Glad

Plo Koon looked at the tiny Togruta curled on his lap, and for the first time in his life, felt the overwhelming urge to leave the Jedi Order. 

She was soot-blackened and bruised, and if he swung his ship to aft, he could still catch a glimpse of the derelict Zygerrian ship slowly succumbing to the gravity of a nearby moon. Good riddance.

It was a cruel thought, but Latrans had a blaster to the child's back when he breached the cockpit.

Plo Koon closed his eyes and exhaled, venting old air. 

"R7, chart is a course back to Shili."

The droid cheerfully chirped in response, which did nothing to lighten Plo's dark mood, but he aqueaqued a grin nonetheless. R7 was doing a remarkable job with this borrowed fighter. Plo had not anticipated combat for this task.

"Thank you, R7."

"Is R7 your droid?" The child rubbed her eyes, wincing when she only managed to smudge the soot.

"Yes." Plo said, wiping her face with the sleeve of his cloak. She absently clutched onto the roughspun, bunching it in her tiny hands. They could both fit within the span of Plo's palm. Not for the first time since he'd been sent to retrieve this new youngling, he was keenly aware of his relative monstrosity. How terrifying a Kel Dor must look to one who had never seen them. Recessed eyes glowing from behind latticework goggles, hulking and broad, spiked fingers, and a rumbling bass for a voice. He wouldn't want to meet himself in a dark alley.

"Is it orange too?"

"No," Plo touched the tip of her nose, eliciting a giggle, "it is red."

"I like red." The child confided, like it was a grand secret. "Mommy is red."

The endearment pained him. The acceptance of younglings into the Temple was an ultimate good. Force sensitive children were in danger by the very nature of their beings. They were a target for slavers and the portions of the galaxy that considered the Force an affront to nature. This fragile peace in the galaxy was new. It was not so long ago that genocide was commonplace.

Parents struggled to raise Force sensitive children. The Order struggled to raise Force sensitive children, and they had centuries of practice. A child that could tell when you lied, that experienced disturbing and often nightmarish visions, one who other children ceased to play with, because it was no fun when one person won all the time, was not a child who adjusted well into larger society.

Plo raised his hands for the child to pat. She grinned, tiny fingers darting out to slap his palms.

"You're very strong."

"I'm 'Soka." She said. "Ahsoka."

"Hello, little 'Soka."

"No, no!" She puffed out her cheeks. "Ah-so-ka!"

"Little 'Soka?"

Ahsoka frowned and drummed on his hands. "Ah-so-ka! Ah-so-ka!" She chanted in time with her claps.

"Ahsoka." Plo said, holding her hands with his fingertips and dancing them around the air.

"Yes!" She giggled.

"Hello, Ahsoka. I am Plo Koon."

"Hello, Plo Koon. I'm Ahsoka."

The thought of this precious little child in the twisting fingers of Latrans and her slaver ilk burned inside him. He put Ahsoka on his thigh so he could reach his medkit. She squirmed out of his grasp, and pressed her face up against the cockpit transparisteel.

"It's pretty." She said, eyes darting to follow the blur of hyperspace.

"Blue." Plo replied absently. No burn cream, and he'd used the last of his oxygen purge when on Coruscant, when a passerby knocked his mask off while he was almsgiving outside the Temple. Unpleasant for everyone involved, but especially the people there for a meal, as he'd hemorrhaged into it. Nevertheless, he had something for the fingerprint bruises forming on Ahsoka's arm.

"Blue." Ahsoka repeated. "Orange," she pointed to herself. "Orange." She pointed to him.

"It seems we match, little 'Soka. May I have your arm?"

She let him take her injured arm, popping the thumb of her other hand in her mouth.

"This will help your arm heal." He said. A vitamin K solution. It was safe for all but a few species, and something he took along specifically for these sort of youngling retrieval assignments. Children were clumsy, and after a few years of scraped knees and Trandoshan tears, he'd learned to be prepared.

The concept of intentional bruises never even crossed his mind. The thought lurked there now, like a festering sore.

R7 chirped, and they dropped out of hyperspace into the orbit of Shili.

"Chilly!" Ahsoka exclaimed, squishing her nose against the transparisteel. "Though I was going to Crescent."

"We must retrieved the ship first." And Ahsoka must have the opportunity to say goodbye, and her parents the opportunity to refuse her entry into the Temple. She would not be trained, but a place for her would certainly exist if the Force proved too powerful for her to ignore. There were a handful of dazzlingly Force-sensitive children, that became dazzlingly untrained Force-sensitive adults, and had no idea what to do with themselves. The Jedi taught them rudimentary self control and centering, and offered them placement in the Agricorps.

And of course the Jedi would keep watch over her, if she remained on Shili. To abandon Force-sensitives simply because their parents couldn't bear to part with them was cruel.

Plo doubted Ahsoka's parents would refuse her, though. Her family (and indeed her entire hometown) was overjoyed that their daughter would become a Jedi. Plo saw more than one poster of Shaak Ti and her gentle, unyielding gaze.

Perhaps Ahsoka would become a Jedi, or perhaps she would be a farmer, growing food for worlds like Tatooine and Jakku, or a pilot, like the friendly man who had flown Plo to Shili, and who stayed with Ahsoka's family to comfort them. It was a good future. A gentle one.

"Would you like to help me land, little 'Soka?"

She frowned at him.

"Ahsoka?" He corrected himself.

She stuck her tongue out, but bounced with excitement. "Yes! To Chilly!"

He offlined the control console and sent instructions to R7 to bring them down, then let Ahsoka go to town on the controls. She squealed with glee, toggling whatever switch she could find and pressing buttons to her tiny heart's content.

Plo closed his eyes. Yes, this was good.

A good memory.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You.
> 
> I was expecting the final episodes of clone wars to be like, thirty minutes of Jedi dying tragically, except you care this time because youve watched clone wars. Alas it was not so.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you liked it.


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